Nothing Still Hurts
by wanderingjade
Summary: Accidents happen, bad things happen. Soujirou isn't use to accidents. Yuki isn't use to living with bad things. No was to blame but they had a funny way of not blaming anyone. There was so much to not blame that they just stopped being.
1. Prologue

Nothing Still Hurts

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Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango or all that it entails.

A/N: This is mainly based on a mix of all the dramas and slightly some OC. Be warned that it can be very distorted and the subject matter will only be focusing on Yuki and Soujirou so whoever pass through is only passing through. It is rated M for illusions and a few placed words (better safe than sorry). If you're looking for a quick happy story, this isn't it. I know I'm jumping right into the bad and working to the good so bear with me if you wish.

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Prologue

_Pink, the walls would've been pink and decorated in some hideous theme that only the likes of Akira's mother and sisters would love._

This wasn't pink. It was cream, soft, almost yellow. Mellow and calm, polar opposites to the dynamic of the child's parents. Theirs was a fiery mess that only a child could calm, even for a brief instance.

"This was the compromise?" The sex of the child hadn't been formed yet and they had already started the battle for the poor thing.

"It is for now." Examining the scene of bears and fairies and magical playground painted on the walls, it was clear how much more bickering would come to pass before the future Domyoji saw the light outside of the womb.

"It is for now and it will be for later." Even newly pregnant she was still fast on the heels of her sparing partner, witness in tow.

"I thought you two were out shopping or something." Tsukasa's attempt to have the subject tabled didn't sit well as the annoyance played out on Tsukushi face.

"We were but work called and I realized I forgot some things at home. The fact that you think you can change this room is about as likely as me starting maternity leave now so quit trying to redo the room. It's fine the way it is." Turning slight, I dreaded the person next to her. "Right Yuki?"

It was that sickening smile. The one what no one but Soujirou knew the source of, the smile that only he saw past. She would have that smile till the ends of her days because of him.

"I'm sure whatever you two do, the baby will love it." Diplomatic and neutral but effective in zoning in on the real recipient of argument, the baby.

"See, she agrees. So quit trying to sway your friends into agreeing with you." Taking a slight glance, Tsukushi ushered everyone out of the room.

"I'm not swaying, I'm polling their general thoughts. Even a babyphobic idiot like Soujirou can see this isn't right for a boy's room." In hindsight, idiotic comments like that wouldn't have hurt so much but hindsight wasn't what came first.

"You're an ass Tsukasa." As for as Soujirou was concerned, asshole didn't know what he was talking about. He could pick his own fight with his wife all he wanted. There was no point in ripping at a scabbing wound.

SLAM.

"What's his problem?" If only Tsukasa knew, he wouldn't have bothered to ask. The sad part was, he wouldn't and the relief was Yuki was blended into the walls. Silently bidding her departure, she exited heading any other direction than Soujirou.

This was how they were now.

They kept up appearances to do so but it is to bide the time that was lost. Letting those around try and remember a time before their paths had crossed. Hoping that the day when someone nostalgically links Yuki and Soujirou names in passing that all the events that came to pass became a ghost that none would know existed. Theirs was a silent agreement on the end.

There will be a day where Yuki would only be mentioned as Tsukushi's childhood friend, only. The lingering notions of Soujirou and Yuki would become a nonexistent figment of someone's forgotten imagination.

That day would come.

It had to.

"You're back." If solace was a place, this wasn't it. If sanctuary was something Yuki wanted, this place still wasn't it. If habit was a place, this was it.

"So I am." Yuki didn't bother to make room for him, there was no point. She didn't want his company and he knew it.

"I was thinking I should leave you a key to the gates." If Shin's idea of thinking was to actually lay the key besides her, then he was much like his brother when it came to thinking. They were doers, not talkers. Sure Soujirou made comments in passing but when it mattered, he was a doer. He was as bound and determeind as Yuki to do what was needed now till the end came.

"I didn't come here for some favor. I'm just some dumb girl who found your garden." Yuki knew the pain was still tainting her words, anger in her tone, resent in the very being of it all but it was all she had sometimes and this was the only place she could feel them without someone's juding eye. Maybe aside from Shin's.

"Well, quite a few people find this garden as well but they are usually my patients and it's usually during business hours. Not to mention I have the Nishikado gene that compels me to be nice to pretty girls."

"You must have the faulty one if you are that compelled. I'm not that pretty and I'm sure your brother is slowly remembering that. Just like he's slowly remember all the other things he thought from the start." She was just some dumb girl. She was trouble for all the rules he had and in the end, she was trouble. Accidental and a twisted serendipitous trouble but trouble. No matter how things did and didn't happen, it was all trouble and it took only that one instance for Soujirou to remember why he was a fan of the fleeting encounters rather than some dumb girl.

"It's not your fault." Shin said it every time. There wasn't a visit to the garden that he didn't say it but it didn't make a difference. It was just words, useless words. The more times he said it the more Yuki couldn't help but laugh at his poor attempt to do something. He was a man who left his family and chance brought his brother's mistake to him. Chance filled him in on the man his brother became. On the dumb girl who was as dumb as his brother initially believed. Shin was meddling his hands into silent Nishikado territory.

"You laugh but one day, you'll see it." That was new. "One day, you'll remember this as an anomaly. It won't hurt less but with time maybe something will give you a reason to feel more soothed."

"I was leaving so you won't have to chase me out tonight." She knew what time the clinic closed. Yuki tried to make her visits within the clinic's hours, a few times she stayed right till closing. One bad set of news was all it took that day months ago. It was enough to knock the life out of her. Her feet could only take her so far before she found the garden and stopped bothering. It was all fun and games with Soujirou till biology found her. Then not weeks later, biology dealted her another nasty blow and her legs didn't let her get further than the garden. Now she just came back hoping to remember what it was like before she had her first appointment. Those precious seconds before.

"I was never planning to chase you out." Pushing the key closer to Yuki's hand, he made special care to stop short of actually touching her. "Maybe you don't like me because of my brother. Maybe the thought of anything that resembles him is truly painful. There is no doubt that the pain is there and maybe you do hope that this will all pass. There's no real handbook to it or else I would've given it to you already. Whatever my issues with my family that once was, that pain was real then as it is now. There was a time I resented them, hated how they went to great lengths to get me back. There was no handbook to that and it is not what you are dealing with but life is pain and maybe I am being nice for the sake of my brother by way of you. Regardless, you're in pain. In the big picture, I know I can't make it go away and I'm not going to try to make it seem so small that someone clueless like me can fix. So take the key, take the time you need. If anything, I can say time is what you need."

It was cheesy and pointless. If this was time a matter of time then months didn't make much difference.

"Laugh if it helps, but believe me that you will move on. Ignore my idiot brother. His hand in it has been done. How you move on is your call, not his. Your life is yours and take it from someone who's been on the inside of that world, if you're not ready for it, don't walk the path of what if just to make the pain worse."

He had taken great care to not touch her, till his departure he had stood behind Yuki in silent compassion but mothering words. Shin only left with an attempt to pat her back before the click of the gate was heard.

There was no real comfort in any of this. It was all just going through some sense of motions. This was where Yuki came when each day refused to settle like it use to. Each day was another tiring day of hoping for the past and resenting the time that had come and gone.

Pregnant was not a word used by a girl like Yuki to describe herself.

Trouble was the antics that Tsukasa and the F4 got into.

Mess was what they left in their path.

Yuki was the trouble, the pregnant mess that Nishikado Soujirou left in his wake. It was all fun and games till reality dawned. Even playing it safe while reckless didn't shield her from reality. There was no protection from what if.

It was no secret over the years that eventually Nishikado and she had some friendly understanding. Tsukushi didn't like it but she couldn't argue that they were all adults and no one was getting hurt. Details were obscured so what looked dangerously close to not innocent was still just that. It was easier to not talk about what you didn't want to know when you refused to acknowledge it. The F4 as a whole didn't question and didn't comment. With time it wasn't rare for Nishikado to bring her with him to some function. Yuki was a stand in when he needed someone that didn't look like they belonged in a club dancing on bars and having a wild time. It wasn't rare over time for him to treat her as more than just some girl that kept popping up. With time, they were friendly without discussing more than that. He had his girlfriends and she had her occasional boyfriends. None of which lasted for either of them and overall they returned to each other with time. It wasn't official and nothing was set in stone, just things in passing. At best it was a steady whim, like a dieter who had a designated cheat day. What was done behind closed doors was left for no one to know or ask. It was easier to forget the lines that others wanted and live with the things that were close enough when no one spoke of it. She was usually gone from his bed before anyone was wiser to finding her there and he was gone from hers before anyone even knew. Her sister had long been married and moved out and her parents had taken to visiting her grandparents in their respective old age. When they left for the weekend believing that their responsible daughter would be fine with friends like the F4 to keep a safe eye out, they didn't bother to realize that the Casanova was prone to spend his time there.

They didn't know that their daughter had all but made a scene big enough for the neighbors to notice had they been home. Had they known, they would realize how much their daughter was lost at that present time.

The more time had passed, the more it was hard to remember a time before it all. Trying to find habits that use to be, actions and mannerisms that came before it all.

"Of course he was babyphobic." He will always be. She wasn't going to change that. She just wanted a time before. A time before Nishikado Soujirou, before she was some dumb girl. To many years had passed too many months since then and it was all locked away in a part of her mind she couldn't go back to. The hope to finding herself before it all was dying each day.

Shin was right, there was no handbook. Time was dragging the vile retched bile she felt deeper into her core. She person she was trying to maintain for appearances sake was fake and she tried in vain hoping that if she faked it well enough, it would be real again.

I hadn't been real and each passing day was another possibility of someone or something making its own cutting retort to how much her efforts and hope will be in vain.

She was a mistake and time only proved it. It reinforced all of Soujirou's initial notions.

An accident waiting to happen wasn't going to change anything but it did. The path back was gone and making a new one was hard.


	2. Chapter 1

Nothing Still Hurts

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Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango or all that it entails.

A/N: I have to admit, I had a vague idea of how this would go but the more I write the more it's harder to keep that specific image going. It just gets deeper and deeper into a realm of different, with luck I'll see a good story flow in the chapters I have written ahead and won't decide to scrap them. So far the chapters after this get off the original track since I couldn't make anything else seem believable and even that's a stretch. The good news is I plan for a happy ending but getting there is another problem. I guess let me know if this is too far off the beaten track to be worth keeping since the next chapter is the one that just doesn't fit completely in my head but it fits well enough. I'm going to give Chapter 2 another regretful onceover before I upload it or chunk it and start over.

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Chapter 1

"Yuki." Akira. There was no denying the bodyguards once she heard her name. One stood yards ahead and most likely one far back enough to not be noticed by any other eyes.

Plastering on a grin, she waited for his voice to find her location. There was no point in pretending she didn't hear. If Yuki did, the pretense was gone. She had to keep continuing like nothing was really nothing because nothing happened.

"Akira." And Soujirou was trailing him with one very lethargic Rui. Their heydays of youth were gone but the boys made efforts to bond even with age. Nodding as they approached, Yuki kept the grin going hoping to appear as expected.

"If anyone would agree she would."

Shaking her head, she could only wonder what pit of torture Akira's playful voice would bring. "I would?"

"Yeah, I was telling Soujirou here that he needs to get rid of that stick up his ass." Feigning some sense of a mortified den mother she shook her head.

"I'm sure Soujirou's just tired or something. Give him some time to rest and he'll be back to his fun loving self in no time." It was late enough. The moon and stars winking too many winks back proved that she had to leave the garden sooner or later. Later had came and was going when she found herself back on the streets heading home.

"That man is a man who needs to get himself laid and work out all his issues between the sheets." If there was time for Akira to not make light of anything between Soujirou and her, this was one of those times. "How about you help him out or something? He's turned away all my help and you're about the only one left."

There was no blood left in her head, she was sure of it. It wasn't rare that jokes had been made at their expense, but she had dodged being in the audience the last while and had forgotten how pointed they could be.

"Asshole, you don't know anything." Soujirou's temper was enough for both of them. Storming off into the crowd, he didn't bother to look back as he flipped Akira the bird.

"Seriously, what is his problem? Try to help a guy, try to cheer him up and nothing." Yuki knew better than to believe Akira's glance her way as one of accusation but the thought lingered as he waited for her to comment.

"Stress?" It was possible. A truly honest enough excuse that some might believe.

Shrugging slightly, Akira draped his arm on her shoulders. "Maybe." Glancing to see where his men were he gave another shrug. "So what are you doing out this late? Running away from some disastrous date or something? Is that why Soujirou's been an ass lately?"

If only. "Took a walk and ran some errands and hadn't quite made it home." Shrugging for effect as well as to shrugged Akira off completely, he dropped the subject as well as the arm around her should while Rui caught up with them.

"Heard Tsukushi asked you to be the baby's godmother." Ah the salt to the wound.

"It's only natural for her to be the godmother if we're the godfathers." Nodding she tuned the two out as they talked about the next generation. Of course, if this was part of the conversation before finding her, then it was only natural for Soujirou to react so irrationally. His temper was getting the best of him for no reason than his own.

Silence was golden.

If you let it be silent, then maybe your thoughts would be drowned out by it.

For the silence Yuki liked Rui. It was one of his traits she was growing to appreciate. He was a man of few words and his imprint on the world was a quiet one.

His presence across from her as he people watched while she made a pitiful attempt to finish homework was fleeting. It only took a brief thought to acknowledge his approach for him to take the seat across from her without a word.

No, her silent anger at her studies rather than life was better than the other way around.

"Is everything alright between you and Soujirou?"

If Yuki had flinched, Rui didn't comment, he kept his eyes trained to those across the way.

"As fine as they could be." It wasn't a lie since given the circumstances it really just so.

"If that is what you two believe then it will only come naturally with time for the rest of us to agree."

Rui wasn't judging, he never did. He never made passing jokes, snide remarks, he just didn't. His way of getting involved wasn't like Tsukasa's or Akira's, but that didn't mean he didn't. And here he was now, basically telling her that the jig was up. The last bout of torture and pain that lingered on her was showing and Soujirou was no better. She knew Soujirou was no better but only Soujirou would will it his way as she did hers.

"Relationships are a funny thing. You have opposites that attract and those alike do the same. For friendships and more the interaction is very similar. Tsukushi and Tsukasa can seem like opposites but in reality they are very alike and those on the inside won't disagree. Soujirou can be a calm and meticulous man, details and very driven. Yet give him a reason and he can be as irrational and crazy like Tsukasa or worse. Whatever it is, both of you are choosing to keep it individually. You won't share with the rest of us and it seems you won't share with each other."

There was no comfort in his voice, just the voice of reality. Cuttingly truthful. "I know it's starting to show." Soujirou was dealing his way and she was doing things her way. Unfortunately his friends were around him more than she was around hers.

"It's obviously not my place to ask but maybe you should pass on to Soujirou that eventually someone will."

"Matsuoka-san." Nodding Yuki, was duty bound to cross the threshold. It wasn't rare for her to come through the front door of the Nishikado estate during daylight hours. It was just rare that she did so now. She had waited patiently for hours by the doors wondering if crossing the threshold would matter. He was home, it was early enough that he wouldn't be out with friends and late enough that anything he had to do outside of the house was done already. It had all been a matter of making her presence known for someone to acknowledge it.

Like the stubborn coward she was, she waited by the gate lingering like some vulture. Hoping to find a wind to carry me away so she wouldn't be here.

The wind was dead today.

If someone had been monitoring the front cameras, they would've known she was biding her time till someone gave into curiosity and came to acknowledge her.

Not a question was made, just acknowledgement that she was still allowed on the grounds and the doors held open like she had come for afternoon tea or some nonsense.

"The young master is in his study." Had it been that many visits that no one bothered to ask if she was expected? Yuki had been let to wander her way down the bright walls towards his wing. Passing the same servants, even gleaning by his mother view as she told the chef what she expected for dinner. No, nothing about her flagged anyone's notice. No warning bells tolled, no one stopping her stride. Not a sign that her presence was unwanted. It could've been seen as fine but in all reality, it was most likely for the sake of pretense. Gossip was easy to spread and barring her entrance was more than enough to ignite questions. No, it was easier to not deny her entrance and trust the silent agreement.

Today, she wanted to be another ornament on the wall. Something fine where it was for a time but taken down when it was no longer wanted.

The fact that his mother was home made the visit less bearable. The whole point of coming on a Sunday was the fact that most of the servants were elsewhere. Only a bare staff was around and usually they were focused on the main areas rather than personal quarters. His mother was home meant his father wasn't far along. There was no hope they had gone away for the weekend, no business that took them elsewhere. No, the family was all in house.

Each step away from one servant's view was another slower step his way.

There really was no point being here. Yuki knew she wasn't wanted and those around just plainly didn't know. His breaking point was gone and anything she could say wouldn't make a difference now. Too many people were here and that meant too many more would be graced with fresh gossip that had been lurking around, hiding in plain sight in just a way that they wouldn't bother to know till it was brought to light.

She might as well turn back.

Maybe another day she might bother to try again.

When less people were around.

When it didn't feel like she was opening the household to some plague they couldn't prepare for.

"Will you be staying for dinner Yuki?" The taste of bile was all she could mange to swallow as she was asked. The face of the mother of the man she was hoping to avoid but couldn't.

"I don't believe I will." There was no point to smiling. His mother's appearance wasn't a happy one and while time helped her accepted Yuki as Sara's replacement, she wasn't blind to who Yuki was. If Rui and the F4 weren't blind to what Soujirou and she was, there was no point to believe his mother didn't have an inkling or two.

"I guess you two had dinner plans. I wish that boy would say something. I had told the chef to cook for the whole family tonight." It was the bite that was meant as a small nip at her ankles.

"Actually, I don't know if Soujirou is going out tonight." She knew was giving her that fake smile, the one Yuki hoped that would be real. "I'm not quite sure why I came. It's late and I should've been home hours ago." Or something.

"Well since you're here you can stay and join us for dinner. I'm sure your parents wouldn't mind while they're away." Instinct told her to nod. Fear stopped her.

Pain made her lie. "Actually they're coming back tonight and I think we are having a late dinner together when they get in." She doubted she could manage to sit at the same table as Soujirou multiple nights a week. Once a few nights ago at the Domyoji mansion was enough and even then Rui was driven to comment on his observations.

Yuki refused to find out what his mother could think or say. It was easier to not give her a chance.

"There you are." Fear. Yuki felt it more lately. She knew the woman was talking past her. "Yuki's come to visit." Yuki could see her smile. It wasn't anything like the fake one, her message was clear and not an ounce of it was forced. "I'll have some drinks sent and maybe some cakes. I think the chef made something earlier." If she knew Yuki was trying to exit, she didn't care to let it happen.

No, she didn't know. She was use to the habit of seeing Yuki come this way and in passing sending drinks and snacks.

Whatever it was, Yuki didn't have to look to know he had retreated back the way he came. Just like his mother had retreated to feign ignorance to them. The only problem was Yuki was locked between appearing as it was and wanting to flee.

It wasn't long before one of the maids came down the hall with a tray for the pair. Eyeing Yuki so, she took the tray before the maid could go further. If Soujirou was to blow up on sight, the less witnesses, the better.

He had always left the doorway slightly ajar in his study, just enough room to enter and exit without moving anything. Barely enough for the tray to come in with her but it was enough.

Clearly their choice to not bother anymore was still deep in him. There were many surfaces to place the tray and while the coffee table was best and habit, distance called for the cabinet on the other end of the room. Careful to close the door as silent as she tried to enter, he heard her and the expressionless attempt of his cracked enough to show his lingering feelings.

Anger.

Rage.

Betrayal.

Defiance.

"I came to let you know Rui asked about you." The crack got worse. "He asked if you were alright and in all honesty I told him that you were as fine as you could be."

Fury.

"I came to return your tie." It was her official excuse for being there. He had left it many moons and stars ago and had hung in her closet waiting to be returned.

Revulsion.

Placing the tie near the tray, he had yet to move from behind his desk. Not bothering to look at her, it was worse than before. Worse than when he thought she was some simpering girl. No, this was a man who rather saw the back of her out the door.

Pure loathing.

She was ceasing to exist but because everyone claimed her presence was real he had to humor them. Just like she did for him.

They were each other's Easter bunnies in a world were their presence around each other was the chocolate and no one would stop to realize that the chocolate was gone and Easter had passed. The bunny of myth stopped being and the person in the costume was tired but no one was letting them disappear into the shadows with the costumes since they refuse to see past the myth.

"My parents have asked if I could help my grandparents out after I graduate and I think it might be best if I go." Back to a life where the F4 was in the papers rather than those she saw in person. "I won't say if I come back and if anything, we'll have to see each other again at least once after Makino gives birth."

There was no point to saying goodbye, just a warning on how to keep the charade going till they could make a timely excuse to let everyone else continue playing the sick game of life.

His anger had peaked. It was boiling over for some time and he let fester as much as she did.

Maybe he meant to do it and missed and maybe he didn't and changed paths but clearly something flew at the wall she had passed and made a very painful departure with the world. Whatever it was wasn't going to be mended. At best, it would be replaced.

Assuming anyone noticed that it was gone.

He didn't yell, there was no screaming, just one object meeting its maker on the wall she passed.

Nodding her way out, she didn't bother to say anything.

She waved off his mother's offer to have her dropped off at home.

Yuki knew she was leaps and bounds from home but what point was there left to taking the offered ride and it was her exit, there was no need for her to keep lingering in the Nishikado world.


	3. Chapter 2

Nothing Still Hurts

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Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango or all that it entails.

A/N: So I gave up. I was hoping to salvage what I could to make this the 'quick' story I had thought it would be but I couldn't. So given the progression of where the storyline has gotten to at the next few chapters I have written, this will be a great deal longer than I intended. Some bits might seemed dragged out but I just can't seem to find a way to speed the events up or modify them something more convincing. It's my own stupid fault for using something very heavy as the back story knowing that the real thing is far from easy or quick to explain. Oh well, it'll just mean I keep the creative juices flowing for the summer. Ahead of time, sorry for the creative liberties I've taken that might seem too off the beaten track, my knowledge of Hana Yori Dango has gotten fuzzy with age and I can only recall the dramas more easily than the manga.

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Chapter 2

To the world she was only being dutiful.

To the world she was a good girl.

To the world, her life was ahead of her.

To the world, a part of her wasn't dead inside.

Bringing it back to life failed and only caused a backlash greater than the death.

It was compounding on each other to the point that now, it was best left for dead.

"I guess this means I'll have to make sure to take up as much of your time as I can when you get back." Nodding, Yuki let Tsukushi cling to her notions. There was no date for her return, if ever. If she had known months upon months ago her grandfather's heart attack would be her exit strategy, she might've planned better. Now she was planning to flee in plain sight, knowing the only person who knew wasn't going to stop her. The anger and resentment and distaste that came with her presence was leaving with her and he would be the last to betray her efforts. No, returning to life before their paths crossed couldn't be worse than what it was now.

Fake.

Forced.

Dead.

"I guess so." There was no point looking at baby items with Tsukushi, it only resonated how much she wanted to leave. They didn't need to bother looking since somewhere out there, a pair of well connected men plus one dutiful man and at least one very overeager in-law was very well preparing for the child. Yuki was just a reminder to Tsukushi of a life somewhere else. Less of the F4 and more grounded.

There was no point in telling the truth and lying wasn't worth it. No, Yuki let everyone think she was going for a few weeks. She never clearly said when she would return but then again, she never clearly said which weekend she would leave. No, for those that cared, her departure was temporary. Like an extended weekend trip.

Dutifully going where she was needed and willing to stay as long as it took, it all hinted along the lines of too long but not expressed.

No, Yuki let Tsukushi lead her around looking at baby items asking for opinions and comments while the expected reactions were forced out.

Faking her way along hoping to feel something that should be.

Faking that not feeling anything was better than feeling what was.

Smiling like an excited girlfriend because it was so sickening Yuki had to bear it or bear the consequences of unraveling her silent agreement to go.

"You didn't know she left last week did you?" Soujirou wanted to kill Rui. He caused it.

No, Rui didn't cause the start of the mess but he helped it along.

Drove her off.

"Screw you." Not bothering to care, Soujirou let the door slam back in Rui's face. Damned if the servants saw. It shouldn't matter to them. They were supposed to do their job, be unseen and unheard at this point.

Rui didn't agree to being treated like one.

No, he took advantage of the fact that Soujirou hoped he got the message to go away.

"Exactly how does that help your problem?" For good measure he rubbed his nose as if the previous action had caused some great war wound.

"I don't have a problem." Not a damn problem. Like she said, it just wasn't.

Not his or anyone's damn anything.

Damn her and damn her for it all.

"Because Yuki left? Because she isn't here you don't have a problem?" Rui too.

"Leave."

"How much longer do you think everyone will believe that work is what makes you like this?" No, Rui was a problem, not as big but a problem.

"You don't know anything so leave."

"You're right. I don't." Good. Not only did he get it he stopped following him. "All I know is that one day you two were fine and next thing any of us could see, you couldn't be bothered to care more than the next guy." Damn him. "Even Akira shows more effort than you." Akira too.

"Leave."

"Like Yuki?"

"Low blow asshole."

"Whatever it is between you two, either let it go or go deal with it. Keep being pissed off at everyone and eventually, someone will do it for you their way."

His way? None of this had been his way. "Screw you Rui. This is none of your business and what Yuki wants to do, say or think is her problem." All her and everyone else wasn't a damn part of it.

"And yet you're angry enough for the both of you."

"Is this your way of dealing with it for me? What?"

Rui didn't flinch.

"WHAT?" There was no solution because as far as it was, there was no problem. "Hoping things go back in time? Hoping she'd fix me like some dog that needs to be broken in? Were we your JOKE? Can't laugh anymore because she's gone? I get it Rui, life's a bitch and as far as she's concerned nothing happened. Fucking hilarious."

Some cosmic joke where the irony was in the blood and it was so funny no one can laugh.

"What didn't happen?" All of it.

"None of it."

There was a lot of things about Rui that everyone thought they knew and a few they didn't really realize the knew.

Waving off those lingering he lead the way to the study.

Maybe he did know and maybe he was out to just know. It didn't matter at this point. What was the point anyways?

Rui was a man of details. He knew Soujirou's drink and he knew when to have it ready. He knew that this bout of nothing was enough for him to pour himself a good drink too.

"Nothing huh?"

"Dodged a bullet she said." It wouldn't have been a fatal bullet but that didn't matter anymore.

"I always thought you two were careful."

Laughing through his sip, Soujirou gulped the rest down. Rui wasn't just observant, he was smart and those two things with a man who noticed enough for Yuki to skip town meant he would figure it out eventually.

"Law of averages. It was bound to find me on the other end of things eventually." Rui was a good friend, good enough to pour another drink till it was almost ready to spill over the brim.

"So the problem is nothing?" Rui sipped as he gulped. "I guess it is hard to fix nothing. Anger would be a natural response."

"What's your point?" He was getting there and honestly Soujirou didn't need him to have a point.

"I can only guess but obviously you're angry at nothing and she left for nothing. That's a lot of nothing to not fix and a lot nothing to be angry at, just plain a lot of nothing for her to not want to be here. Very few people go help their grandparents indefinitely for that much nothing."

"You're an ass." Point out the obvious, Soujirou knew.

"You said that already."

"She's not coming back." He knew it. She never said it but he knew it. Yuki was gone and even if she came back in a few months to visit, she would only leave. Physically, she was gone. The rest of her was gone long before she left and only one was coming back, sort of.

"You did let her go." Asshole. It wouldn't have helped if he tried to stop her.

"Because I should do everything for nothing?"

Shaking his head he topped of Soujirou's drink again. "I can't say what you should've done, it's too late. I can't tell you what to do since I haven't got a clue. But I can say that whether she's here or not, at best only one of you might be better off and I'm reaching with such a claim. If nothing does this to you, nothing is either as bad or worse for her. The difference is you get angry and she just stops being. Do what you want."

Their drama had finally stumped Rui. This broke the man. No words of real profound wisdom. No pillar of support. Just 'whatever' because that was all that was left, not even good luck. Luck left and nothing filled its place.

No, the world before it all was gone. The path back was no longer there. There was no need to imagine her room, he knew what was empty and what wasn't.

She would take just the clothes she would need. Nothing fancy. The crimson dress that he had sent over to her for their last night out at some event was still in its garment bag in the back of her closet. All her everyday wear had left her closet with a hole.

The basic required items, things she had to have each day. Nothing more taken with her.

Bringing the tie back was just another reminder that she had left everything in its place before she went.

Her parents were out to visit her this weekend.

The house was empty. The spare key still in its usual place.

There was no linger scent of something recently baked or promise of a meal soon to be made.

No, the air was stagnant, trapped for days waiting for change. Her room was no different. On sight it looked ready for someone's return. On inspection, it really was all gone. The only brush she used out of the many was gone. Her endless supply of hair ties gone from their usual spot, even the makeshift box she kept them in was gone. No longer would the streets of Tokyo be littered with her hair ties, lost when she randomly felt letting her hair down and only to be replace later when she changed her mind and the original was abandoned miles and hours away.

She took the things she needed to live and left the things she needed to live without.

Pictures and knickknacks of her life here remained. Images of youthful days with Tsukushi. Mementos of outings with the F4. Even one or two programs of business events she accompanied him to, it was here. Where she was now, none of these were her thoughts anymore. It gave the illusion she would return to these memories. In all reality, Soujirou was doubted she would. He knew better and he had ignored it till the nothing over came it all.

It was all nothing's victim.

Damned nothing.

The nothing before was radically different from the nothing now.

Nothing use to be a long weekend here.

Nothing was her terrible eggs in the morning.

Nothing was the nothing like it is now.

Nothing use to be the damn tie left here.

Nothing use to be taking her home from closing at the shop when her parents were gone for the weekend.

Nothing was a quick bite from some guy's cart on the way to the car.

Nothing wasn't this.

"You're taking quite a lot for a short trip." Soujirou heard it. His mother wanted him to stay. The lingering insinuation she made of another son leaving for a reason and not looking back. She didn't want to wake up knowing another son was gone. She knew as well as he did, that this wouldn't be some quick outing with the guys. No, part of him wasn't going to come back till he had to and even then, there was no promise he would. Yuki was out there, even if it was just part of her and he was going to find her.

"I'll be back." He already had one broken woman, he really didn't have it in him for his own mother to test him. He had filled his brother's void all these years and now he need to truly be selfish when it counted.

"Is there anything here for you to come back for?" Shaking his head at her attempt at guilt, it was only a wonder if she did the same for Shin. Shin left knowing he wasn't coming back. No sense of duty or obligation would bring him back, his life was outside of this world and he wouldn't look back. Soujirou's life had been here and part of it had left and he was only going to bring it back. Yuki's life was here, she wasn't going to find it out there. She might have hinted at not coming back and maybe she really wouldn't but Soujirou wasn't going to sit by anymore waiting out her bluff, this gamble was passing far too long and she was letting the nothing eat at her worse than it did him.

"I said I was going to see Yuki." It was true. Her grandparents weren't far but they were far enough. Kuni was just a good enough distance away that no one outright went out there to visit her and there was no doubt she expected it that way.

"You're packing an awful lot just to see someone." Someone?

"Yuki isn't someone. She's more than that and the least I could do is go see her." Maybe. "Worse case, she'll send me back here before I know it."

Worse case, she had finally lumped him into the nothing and it was too late to pull them out.

Only a paranoid mother would take solace in her son's rejection and she did, letting herself see any light as her light. Yuki was just as broken, her light was a sense of illusion that only cut deeper each day.

His mother wanted to believe it was better to have a returned son than one flitting about the world. Anything was better than the void she lived with. Yuki shouldn't have to settle for anything in her nothing.


	4. Chapter 3

Nothing Still Hurts

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Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango or all that it entails.

A/N: Summer school's a pain. Eight classes is my tough pill. Oh well, I picked my poison. This was suppose to be up over a week ago but I lost my thumb drive somewhere between everything. Chapter 4 will be up later today if not early tomorrow. I know some people like leave things on a cliffhanger or shocking note but I don't. It's just too cruel to the readers so if you get to the end and get slightly angry, breath. It will get better. Slowly but better.

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Chapter 3

"Are you lost young man?"

Of sorts. There was no point to having an address when the street signs were missing signs. "Sort of." The stupid GPS was useless, telling him to take a left turn off the middle of bridge was the final straw. "Let me help you with that ma'am." There was no point trying now. It was getting late enough and the least he could try to do was one good deed for the day. Then a trek back to the car and hope to not get lost finding lodgings for the night.

He felt useless. He knew he felt useless for quite some time now but the day was a new level of useless for him. He missed the original exit, the GPS was useless and the map in the glove compartment was older than the roads. All in all, his attempt to make some difference had gotten off to a damned start.

"I can mange. My old bones need something to do." Waving him off, she tried to maintain some balance but wobbled in her gestures. Clearly the old woman shouldn't be overtaxing herself but she did and it was something she was use to. No, reverence and the need to not feel like a waste of space made him push at anything to not feel useless.

"I'm already lost. Maybe I'll get a better idea of where I am if I stop looking." Murphy 's Law had to help him out somewhere.

"Very well." Maybe it was clear he wasn't taking no for an answer or the fact that she looked frail holding groceries bigger than she needed to carry. Shifting all but one bag into his hands she led the way.

"Have you been searching long?" Every house looked roughly the same so a description wouldn't have made a difference. There was no point calling anyone back in Tokyo since no one had come out this way yet.

"Only today." Tomorrow, whenever. It was a daunting task and the initial call earlier to hopefully gauge Yuki's possible reaction was only met with her voicemail. It didn't even bother to ring, it just went straight to voicemail, at least Rui was kind enough to tell him that it was common to meet her voicemail most days. Yuki wasn't avoiding him, she was avoiding everyone.

"Looking up an old friend?" Some would say.

"I'm not sure anymore."

"Falling out?"

"Left." Just left. "Over nothing."

"You're friend must be important for you to keep looking."

"Something like that." Damned GPS.

"We don't get many young people this way."

No, everyone he saw the last hour wandering was near the later years in life. Nothing screamed of youth.

"Where were you headed to young man?" Anywhere at this point. Reaching over he handed her the slip of paper he had jotted down the address on.

"I'm not expected so I don't have much hope in calling to ask for directions." It was true. There was a good chance she wouldn't bother to let him in. The days of phone tag and random intervals of calls and messages were gone. They trickled to short pointed reminders to keep up the expected appearances till any and all social obligations had been met. No, the last few months, any words made were in passing and even then those few words weren't actually directed between them but over each other to someone else. It was enough to sever direct interaction while maintaining the illusion they hadn't.

"What will you do when you get there?" Anything he hoped. Plans were useless now. There was no twelve step program or outline to follow. No, it was by the seat of his pants at best.

"I hadn't thought that far."

There really weren't any street signs any where. Block after block, nothing.

"Why don't you stay for dinner? You must be tired and that stomach of yours is making an awful noise." Skipping lunch in order to shave precious daylight time off the trip was catching up.

Her house was tucked down the way but it was simple and generic like all the others they had passed. Nodding as she let him in and motioning for him to leave the bags where she wanted, the way back to the car would be a journey. It was only a few turns here and there to get back to where he saw her and a ways off to the car he had abandoned in irritation.

"That's alright, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

Shaking her head she rolled her eyes at him. It was enough to remind him how much he was tired.

"My husband will be back soon and I'm sure he would like to know that nice young men are still out there."

"Um..?"

"Sit. You look tired and the rest might help you remember what it is you came out this way for." She was a woman to be heard and pushed him into the chair with a glass of water.

He had all but told work to find someone else to torture and his father was more than justifiably angry for his departure. No, life back in Tokyo would be as bad as it was when he left. If he had much sense he would've had a car take him from the airport to Yuki. Not to mention if he had sense, he would've taken the plane rather than drive.

No, stupidity told him driving might give him a chance to figure out what he was doing. There was once a time when the open road had brought him solace and a clear mind to reflect. He had used it to find his way through various life dilemmas including his last known personal failure with Sara. No, the open road hadn't brought him any solace now. It didn't when his world first started to fail him and all his previous vices and habits to dealing with problems hadn't done him any good and in a few cases made things worse.

He had known better than to believe solitary in a metal box on the open road to Yuki would make any difference.

It didn't and he was still lost and the GPS was still a useless piece of junk.

"We're back." Her husband was back and he was some 'nice young man.'

Not to mention he was in some old woman's home lost and confused.

"Good. Dinner will be ready soon." She was right, his stomach was a noise nuisance. "Yuki, why don't you and this nice young man set the table."

"Yuki?" It was almost comically joyous if he wasn't scared out of his mind. For all the ways Murphy 's Law and life had screwed him up and over, he had finally caught a break.

"Grandmother?" She saw him, he was nothing to her now. Only a passing glance and she was back to looking pass him. Her eyes didn't even grace him with any sense of acknowledgment. She only allowed him to be her peripheral vision while she stared at her grandmother.

"He came all this way and was nice enough to help me bring in the groceries. I insisted he stay for dinner."

"Dinner?"

For good measure her grandmother pushed dishes and utensils into their hands before returning to the task of cooking.

"Murphy's Law." Fat use it ever was. Only it would let her be here and him mentally dead on what to do next.

Yuki use to question such comments but now, it was all nothing to her. She dutifully placed each dish down, not checking if he had bothered to put any of its companions down.

"He got lost wandering the streets, poor man was seven blocks down the way and was nice enough to help me home." Was that how far away he was?

Yuki only nodded before setting out a few glasses for drinks.

"He's very sweet." She only nodded slightly to her grandmother. "Quiet but sweet."

Not one retort, no comment to refute even slightly.

"Why are you here Nishikado-san?" The question to stop most of the questions.

His best answer now was a shrug. There was no grand plan, hope left them too long ago. Luck had clearly abandoned them. What did he have left for her? They didn't have anything left and the silence at dinner proved it. Her grandmother wasn't clueless to his struggle to find her but Yuki had all but shut out the notion that he even existed. He was just a ghost of a life she was blocking out.

"You should go before my grandmother gets anymore ideas."

She had called him Soujirou for so long now he forgot that once upon a time he was Nishikado-san to her. Too much time had passed. They had spent too many months angry and hurt to stop and do anything but be just that. Now their pains had broken so much he didn't have a clue which way to go. She had given too many ways out. Everywhere he turned she gave him a path to go away from her, even when he wasn't looking she had shoved him violently out of her world. It was slow but now she was just a mirage in the road telling him to go. Even if he looked back, she wasn't there.

"I miss hating your eggs." She always made them in the morning and he always had to add something to them for flavor.

She stopped just far enough back that her shadow still lingered on the porch. "I didn't ask you here and you don't need to be here. I'm fine." He heard that once before, many months back, when this had all came out. It was just like he heard her call it nothing. It was her giving him an out. Her giving him a reason to not do or be anything. Done was done. It was all too late, no amount of money or science or prayer or any combination of anything would make a difference. It was all too little too late.

"So this is what fine is?" He had had every right to be angry with her idea of nothing and fine. For the beginning it didn't feel fine, it didn't feel like nothing but she made the argument that sounded so right in all the wrong that he just let it be. Done WAS done. It was all too late, he couldn't turn back the time and change it and even if he did, what was he going to change? What was worse? Was the accident worse? Was the bad worse?

"It's fine now Nishikado-san so go home." She had been resigned to be this way and he had resigned to just being angry. Angry was natural. How do you grieve something that wasn't? How do you not acknowledge something bad? She left little room for anything other than angry. None of this was fine and she wouldn't let it be anything more than nothing. In her mind, he had no right to be anything more than that.

"I'm not fine Yuki." He wanted to be angry. He wanted to know what next? He wanted his real right to be enraged. She had all but told him from the start that anything he felt, he wasn't entitled to. "It's not fine that you're here."

This entity wasn't what he came to find. His Yuki was someone he could run to for comfort, solace. Some grain of peace.

"Go home Nishikado-san." She wasn't listening. She stopped listen so long ago. The moment those words left her lips back then, it was the end. He ignored it in his anger and he let it fester as well as she did.

"I have every right to be here." Whether she wanted him there or not, he did. Even if he was too little too was late. They had both been clinging to a false sense of life, he had given her the berth she needed to do what she wished, she owed him the same consideration now.

"Go home Nishikado-san." He was dead to her, he knew he was dead to her but his anger wanted a few more moments where he wasn't. Just a few moments to be truly angry, something to get past it enough to be himself. Something she had to acknowledge even in her denial.

There was a time when they didn't mind being near each other. There was a time when their close proximity was actually truly fine. No, his approach to her now drove her to backing away.

"It wasn't nothing Yuki." She didn't stop backing away. Each step forward was two of her steps back, not even one sign of bothering to look at him anymore. She stopped looking at him too long ago.

"It is, so go home Nishikado-san." She was fighting it. "You shouldn't be here for nothing."

If he had to break her last grasp at life to get what was his he would. No, the Yuki standing before him wasn't his and he didn't owe her anything. She was someone who would hurt him at his expense for her sake. She took all he would offer and broke him on her way out. She was worse than the girls he ran around with before her, those girls wanted one thing out of him and they didn't claw at him, sapping him dry of his very being. His Yuki was the one who kept him going. Happy for his successes, encouraging when he needed someone but giving him his space to be without being too much of anything to suffocate him. The thing before him wasn't someone he could ignore, this thing had been out to destroy him. This Yuki had cut him to pieces and told him tough luck. Not even a possibility of letting him be whole again, no this Yuki abandoned him without any thought or a semblance of consideration that he was even a person.

He had come all this way for nothing and nothing was a bitch he had every right to be angry with.

"I don't love you." It hurt, the words stung him. He heard them leave his lips knowing that the woman in front of him was just a shell. She was so much like the woman he came to find but she wasn't her. She was out to break him as much as she could and he didn't love her. "I will leave when I am ready. You're had your time here and I am owed for my part in this so I will leave when I am ready."

"Go home Nishikado-san." Yuki would've been the girl who would've reacted to his words. She would've had something to say, even playfully. This woman was the nothing and he wasn't going to let her plague him anymore. It didn't matter if either of them was at fault, he was here for his last piece of solace. Even if he wasn't going to go home with his Yuki, he wasn't going to leave letting her break him further.

He might not have to eat those wretched eggs again but he sure as hell wasn't going to let this nothing tell him that those eggs were all part of some accident.


	5. Chapter 4

Nothing Still Hurts

******

Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango or all that it entails.

A/N: This took longer than I expected to review. Like I stated, this whole story has gotten a life of it's own as I write. Mostly I'm not happy that I veered off of 'quick' story idea I had and gotten pretty deep and for the most part very heavy. Luckily I do like that despite all that I did, it isn't too fanciful and kind of real. If you haven't guess the subject matter and aren't prepared, I'm sorry for what's to come in chapter 5. If you have guessed than I'm still sorry. It's a pain of an ass of topic and it's very heavy and I knew it going into this story. If there's a guy out there who has dealt with the receiving end, I'm can only hope to apologize for the torment you have dealt with and as I've been told Soujirou's pain is what boat you've been in.

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Chapter 4

"You did what?" Having friends with money was bad, having friends with power and money was worse. Two weeks out of Tokyo and Akira had the stupidity to come to Kuni to find out what was what.

"I didn't say any of this was a good idea." No, none of this was a good idea from the start.

"So you're telling me you're not here to see Yuki anymore and you're not here to bring her back to Tokyo?" Soujirou knew what was going to come next and he didn't care to do anything about it. He let Akira's hand meet the back of his head. "What the hell are you doing here then?"

Such a good question even he couldn't dignify it with a real response. "Wasting my time."

Rui was ahead of them letting them have the public debacle. Clearly leaving without warning or notice was noticed and Akira was rightfully annoyed as time passed. If Rui hadn't told him where Soujirou went, his mother did.

At best, someone was out to make sure Soujirou returned to his duties in Tokyo and whatever life he had there.

"So you want to tell me what's really going on or are you planning to call me an ass too?" Soujirou knew he had taken much of his anger out on his friends and they were good enough to bear the brunt of it. That didn't mean they were dumb to the fact that something was going on. Each passing bout of anger and each action that wavered off the expected reaction were finally adding up.

"It's between Yuki and me and I'm working on it." Badly but he was working on it. Yuki mainly left her grandparents house with at least one of the pair and on the one rarely time she ventured out alone, it was only as far as to give something to one of the neighbors two doors down. She had no obligations that forced her out further than the neighborhood.

"So what exactly are you doing to work on it?" Aside from light stalking? Nothing. Each day was passing faster and life was cheating him his chance to figure out what the hell he was really doing. It was clear when he arrived that he couldn't fix her and she would sooner see the back of him than any of him. He had grasped at enough dead end thoughts that he had hoped maybe she would suffer some cliché head injury that could make her forget it all. He was even desperate enough to wish for the lovesick puppy dog phase she had for him. Even that was better than this. No, he knew better than to believe he could pull off some fairytale rescue that would go down with the legends but that didn't mean he hadn't some fleeting feel that his presence would make a difference. He was the legendary Casanova, the Prince Charming of hearts and now, he was to realize that the labels did little to actually help him.

"Let him be Akira." Rui had stopped just enough to make sure Akira heard him before continuing ahead of them.

"See? Rui is fine with what I'm doing." Small comfort but better than nothing.

He stopped again. Turning to stare at the pair them he clearly didn't look confidant in any of this. "I didn't say that, I just think he should leave you be. This is between you and Yuki. Be glad Tsukushi isn't here because it wouldn't matter if you were doing anything because she'd just plain kill you."

"If that was your vote of confidence, than you're screwed man." Shaking his head, Akira sped up to join Rui.

Soujirou was doomed. Plainly uttered doomed in the grand scheme of things. There was no doubt Tsukushi would maim his body as much as she could but it was all a matter of timing now. Her pregnant state made her more prone to fight with Tsukasa and the rest of the F4 were smart enough to not add gasoline to that fire. So far, that much was truly fine.

"Wait a minute, you two don't have a damn thing to say to me?" They had came out all this way just to annoy him? A face to face status report? Akira had dropped it as fast as he picked it up and Rui was just tagging along? It was so much like their earlier days he'd almost forgotten that this was what his friends did.

"Rui made it very clear that it's a personal matter and I can't relate. Something along the lines of women problems and he made bad examples of my sisters so I let it be." Soujirou could only stare in wonder of what bad examples were used.

"I told him that like his sisters reaching puberty, he couldn't relate or help with certain biological mechanisms and in turn if you haven't, then he certainly can't." Right, bad examples.

"This is not about Yuki and PMS." The thought of Rui mention monthly anything female was too much of an image much less using Akira's sisters as the subject.

"Got it." Deadpanning Akira made great strides to end the path the conversation was heading.

Shaking his head Soujirou kept silently chuckling at the image of Rui's possible conversation with Akira. "Did you really use his sisters as an example?" It was almost too much.

"Be glad it worked." With a pat Rui went to catch up with Akira as he entered a very pink and frilly shop.

"She took my husband to his physical therapy." Light stalking was still stalking and it was obviously bad stalking.

Her grandmother was either too understanding or trustful of guys who lurked waiting on her granddaughter.

"Ma'am." It was hard to look innocent when hiding behind a tree. It was harder to look innocent when the small woman looked at you like someone who stole flowers out of her garden and the dirt was still on your hands.

"You don't have to tell me why you keep coming back but eventually you'll have to tell someone." She smiled at him just enough to make him feel that much more guilty.

"I was leaving." Not true but already she was digging under his skin and he didn't need problems with another member of the Matsuoka family.

"Very well. Have a good day. Feel free to come by for tea if you change your mind." She smiled that damned smile. She knew he would cave. She knew he wasn't going to fight someone now. He had come by almost daily and never made it further than the tree. A few times she saw him near the curb pacing before eventually giving up and going back the way he came.

"I would love some tea ma'am."

He had been a right coward, still lingering on the edge of wondering what to do next. That was the only way he could explain why he kept coming back. He had sent Rui and Akira on their way without much of a promise to return or promise of any results. While he appreciated everyone's willingness to let him be, Soujirou wished that someone would finally take over the problem and fix it for him. Yuki's grandmother was the closest person to actually getting involved. Sure Rui knew but he was of little to almost no help. No, Yuki's grandmother was the one who disregarded the fact that he was a few steps away from behavior warranting a restraining order. For some reason the woman seemed to trust him, possibly from the start.

"I'm nothing to her." A lot of nothing to her. There was no point lying to her grandmother.

"I doubt that." Hope would've sparked some sense of elation in Soujirou but hope had left him.

"I ceased to exist to her." He was just a void to be looked past.

"But you're still here." If Yuki had her way, he would've been swallowed up by the earth months ago.

"She doesn't want anything to do with me anymore." That much was very true and there was no way to spin it.

"People keep forgetting that the opposite of love isn't hate." Taking a sip of her cup she gauged his reaction before continuing. "If you hate someone, then to some extent they still matter."

"Yeah well, she sure as hell doesn't love me and it's definitely not hate either." At least he could work with real hate. Maybe.

"There was a time when she was quite happy." Offering Soujirou a cookie she took one for herself. "Something has happened. I'm not blind to it. There was once a time she was more lively, call it youthful. Now, she was very much like those that live here now, waiting for their days to end."

It was morbid and far from reassuring.

"At least you care enough about her to come all this way to check on her. She might not want you to and she might not like it but she knows that you tried. Yuki can be very emotionally stubborn like that."

"Too stubborn." She was very effectively stubborn.

"I don't disagree." I couldn't help but feel slightly better but only slightly that someone could see the how batter Yuki really was. "You might think she doesn't believe you can exist in her life but that's because whatever it is about you that's hurt her is what she's trying to not feel and she's feeling it when you're here."

"I don't want to hurt her and I wasn't trying to." Defensive of him but the whole situation was something he compulsively wanted to impress that he didn't want any of it to have happened the way it happened.

"I never said you did."

"I can't say it's my fault because it wasn't and I'm never going to say it was hers. That's not where we disagree." It was all down to principle now, not people.

"Two people can disagree and still be friends." And?

"It's not that simple." If only it was.

"My husband doesn't like desserts but I do." This was suppose to help him? "He can't stand sweet things but he's learned to live with knowing that the house will have something sweet whether he likes it or not."

"I don't think that will help me." Not one damn bit.

"Just because you disagree and your opinions are very different doesn't mean you can't live with the opinions." She smiled lightly over her tea before pushing the tray of cookies towards Soujirou. "You can be stubborn but eventually you'll learn to live with it. You live with all the other things that have nothing to do with what you disagree on."

He gave an insolent laugh to that. "And what if you can't remember all the other things?" Yuki had stopped bothering to remember anything before, it just ended that day and spiraled from there.

"Then you try to remember and if you can't then you find it again." With a reassuring pat she held a cookie out for him. "Find something similar to either lead you back or forward."

"She won't let me find it again." No, the anger wasn't just one thing, it was everything. Yuki had left it all behind her. It wasn't just bits and pieces she left, she abandoned that one chunk of her life and she turned her back to it all. She refused to look forward and she refused to look back. She just left him on the side of the road and went of the road herself.

"You're obviously here for a reason so it was enough for at least one of you." He gave another laugh. Irony was laughing it's ass off at him. He knew how pitiful it had become. The days of Yuki chasing after him were gone. The days of their quiet comfort passed too. Now he was chasing the ghost of them for a girl who wasn't there anymore.

"She was different." Nothing like the creature out there. "We were different." Stasis. Comfortably being, nothing more and nothing less.

"It usually always is different. Change is hard." Cliché and enough for a lesser man to scoff at but it was technically true.

"I don't know how to live with it and I can't live past it." He had held it in till even Tsukasa's tasteless ribs at his expense were too much. It had all been too much. Everyone going on without a care to it all and he was stuck with no outlet. No one to blame, no one to exact vengeance on. "She won't live with it so she lives away from it and I am not part of that life."

"I see."

"I can't be angry at her but I am and I can't be angry at something that wasn't but I am. I'm angry at all those things that wasn't that she just left. It wasn't my fault but I can't help but feel that she thinks it is. I know it wasn't my fault but I can't stop believing that it might just be my fault."

She reached over to take his hands in hers. "Does it really matter if you could blame the same person together? Would it change anything if someone was really at fault?"

"I don't know." He couldn't begin to walk that path.

"A house could burn down on its own, by accident or on purpose but if the house has burned down, it is still gone." She paused long enough to take a sip of her tea. "They won't be back till tonight. If you're truly not at fault, stop feeling guilty. If my granddaughter isn't at fault, don't blame her. You have to live with it long enough to know what the problem really is if you truly want to get past it."


	6. Chapter 5

Nothing Still Hurts

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A/N: The format of this chapter veers off from how I did the previous ones and I can't seem to find one that works better. There's a chance I might rework it but it's unlikely right now. For the most part I'm not sure how to end/stop the story. Overall I have up to chapter 9 written down but it's a matter of getting the plot to unfold without too much in a chapter and keeping the chapter going without it being a big ball of blah. The Yuki centered chapter(s) are coming up and depending on how much I'm resigned to how they turned out they might be up later this week. At the very least, chapter 6 will be up.

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Chapter 5

"_Why don't you come out tomorrow night for a drink?" The first night back and it was already taken._

"_Can't I already have plans." Akira knew, he was just being polite._

"_Bring Yuki you with you then." He tired the same suggestion each time and it was met with the same result._

"_Maybe." They never came by. Whether it was an early dinner or late one, they never did. "I'll stop by before I head out." Back to back trips were a pain but Soujirou was the man for the job and he was sent off for it._

A week and a half in various countries with a few days to spare before he was needed for business up north at his grandparents'. He didn't need to head back to Tokyo between the two trips but he wanted to and Yuki was free for dinner that weekend. She had tests before he left and this was a window he could take or stomach another few weeks away.

It had all seem innocent and normal. Dinner after a long week away. He wasn't a stranger to going out with her back then, they had gotten busy with time and their lives took them in various directions so they were less likely to lazily find each other by accident on the streets of everyday life.

"_Yuki?" _

She had drifted off all through dinner and kept dozing as the night wore on. No, there wasn't a point to taking her home, the night was over for her and it was just better to get a room at the hotel than drag her home halfway across the city. She was tired from all the tests she had and work. She was prone to just be worn out after all that. Soujirou knew better than to insist on going out for dinner but he did and it had only ended with her fast asleep before they even got to the room.

Now she was wide awake in the dead of night sitting in the dark. He should've let her be and taken her straight home after he picked her up from work. Let her body finish readjusting to her week or so of sleep deprivation.

"_Yuki?" Maybe she was asleep again. He couldn't really see if she was really asleep with her back to him but she had woken at some point to admire the view from their room._

No, she was awake, she just wasn't listening.

"_Come back to bed, the rest will do you good." There was only another day before he had to fly out and there was no point in either of them being half exhausted._

She didn't bother to acknowledge him. He would've believed she was asleep but her breathing wasn't of slumber.

"_I'm pregnant." _

Those were the words that stop a man in his tracks. Any man would at least pause to those words. No, she had been prepared to leave that night. She was dressed ready to go and for some reason she stayed till the morning before leaving. He could remember hold her hand in his not knowing what to say next.

She was the nice girl. The one everyone expected to find someone down the way, get married, have kids and just be. He wasn't the someone, he was just a filler. A holder to the spot, a phase that they would both grow from. She was better than him. He knew she was better than him. The fact that she let him near her was proof how much better she was than him. Any other girl wouldn't look at him like a person, she did. He wasn't some piece of meat or a trophy, he was Soujirou and she knew it.

It was then he was the defiler, the man who tainted her, broke that innocence that had yet to be scarred. He could've been quick to do the right thing but she didn't say anything but that one statement. She didn't ask for his thoughts, she didn't plead for his sense of responsibility, she just sat there. Not moving, not a word, letting him hold her hand till her phone's alarm reminded her she had work that morning and had to leave.

Hindsight told him he should've cancelled his flight later that day but he didn't. Hindsight told him he shouldn't have gone to Akira's like nothing had happened. Hindsight told him he should've barged into the dango shop and dealt with the matter immediately.

No, Soujirou left letting the matter be tabled till he returned. After all, it was too late. If she had know long enough to tell him, then another week or two would be another week or two to let the information settle and they could discuss it when he got back. It would give him time to reflect.

Soujirou wasn't a family man. At best he was a man with people who were his family. The notion of children and that part of his life was something of another era in his life further down the road. Of course he started to sow his oats early on and had only recently slowed down but it was all a matter a circumstance.

He was working now, honestly working.

His mind and body was the company's and his nights out were less and less possible. Yuki was the only one left most nights, she was the link to his friends, to his life before. He had racked his mind at all the possible ways he was a screw up, he had internally berated himself and dragged his ego to be tarred and feathered for thinking that such an event couldn't have happened. No, it was done and it was too much to assume that Yuki would let him do anything more than what she wanted. She had lead a life independent of him for some time now, they were two beings who blurred the lines only with each other till life caught up with them and it finally did.

In all sense of the word, he could never to claim he loved Yuki like Tsukasa loved Tsukushi or whatever semblance of feelings Rui might have had for any of the two major women of his past but he knew he cared for Yuki. He was responsible to some extent and this was something he couldn't let someone else handle, not Yuki.

No matter whatever his feelings would be then or later, she was important to him. She was the rarity that found its way into the inner circle of the F4 and as far as he had been concerned, she would remain within his circle for as long as he could make it so.

He knew what would come of it all. They had walked a fine line and now he had as much to pay as she did for what they did. He would return when his trip was over. He would submit to whatever arrangement she wanted. There were worse women he could've been handed this matter. No, Yuki was a reasonable woman. If she wanted him to marry her, he would do so. If his parents wanted to disown him, they couldn't. He was the only one left. No, his family would rake him over the coals and he would have to live with it. If their friends judge them, he would shield Yuki from it. Their world had changed and he would find a way to make it work. He would welcome the child because it was his. This was not just all on Yuki, it was as much on him as it was on her. He had left the usual calls and messages letting her know he would be back. He was usually met with her voicemail since his schedule and hers usually didn't pair well when he was away. This was a matter to be handled and it would be given the attention it needed before anything was done.

He was ready to buy a house with her. He would be there to prepare for the child's birth. He would be there through whatever she needed.

He had his assistant find a realtor to search for a proper place for them if not for her. For the chance her family would react badly, he would do all he could.

He had lined some of the best doctors he could find ready to discreetly take her on as a patient.

His child would be prepared for. No matter the negative or untimely way it was unfolding he would do everything he could to negate it all both for his child and Yuki. No one was going to say he didn't do the right thing, no one was going to tell him didn't try. The only person who could would be Yuki.

"_What happened to coming back tomorrow?" There were more important things in Tokyo that he had to be there for. If pushing his schedule up meant he could be back a day early at the expense of having to deal with other matters later then it was a fair compromise. No, his trip was much longer than it had to be. He was suppose to only be gone at most two weeks but each and every turn delayed his return another day. A day early when he should've been back over a week ago was better than nothing._

"_Something came up." Her class was around there and it was her last class of the day. Various messages had been left to let her know he was back early. They needed to talk and figure out what to do next. _

"_Think you and/or Yuki might want to join the rest of us tonight? Shigeru is in town and she invited everyone out." Soujirou shrugged as he waited for the minutes to tick away._

"_What did Yuki tell you?" Go with what was known._

"_Actually, she keeps saying she's busy. Funny girl. It's like she is either working, at school or studying. If I didn't know better, I would think she was avoiding everyone." _

_Akira's suspicions might have been true but until Soujirou had time to talk to Yuki, nothing was known. No he couldn't deny the nasty voice in the back of his head tell him that it was odd he had yet to actually hear her voice outside of her voicemail. Three weeks with only her voicemail to talk to him was more than he was use to. It was more than just three weeks of getting the damned voicemail but three weeks where she didn't send any response to him. _

_The fact that everyone hadn't seen her for quite some time did eat away at him but he hadn't let it get to him till he was actually home._

"_I'll ask her about going when she gets out." Checking his watch again, the last class would end soon. "Why don't you go, I'll give you a call later if we make plans."_

_Akira was keen to know Soujirou wanted to see Yuki alone. He didn't need to be kicked out to know that this was one of the few times his presence wasn't wanted once she arrived._

_It wasn't long before the doors opened and everyone fled while the next class made their way in. Waiting closely, Soujirou waited for Yuki to exit. She usually sat in the front and in turn she should be one of the first ones out. A few noticed him but for the most part, they left him be. It wasn't till the last ones trickled out that he realize he hadn't seen her exit. Checking to see if there were any stragglers in the room, he left the classroom wondering how he missed her. She had to be in class today. It was one of the classes she struggled the most with. Pulling out his phone he quickly called her. She was either still near or she never came to class._

_He heard it ring and the echo down the corridor meant she was just a few lengths away. Following the sound of her phone, he quickly caught up to her to see her put her phone back in her bag before continuing on her way. She didn't bother to answer his call or wait to see if he had left a message._

_From behind, he realize why he missed her altogether. She was hiding under a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up to cover her almost completely. It wasn't just odd, it just wasn't her if it wasn't for the phone._

"_Yuki." She heard him but kept going. She didn't bother to look back or slow down. Her pace remained but it was her._

"_Yuki." She only kept going._

_Making his way just enough, he was able to catch up with her. On a purely romantic level, anyone would confuse his eagerness for an enamored suitor._

_No, he saw it the closer he got to her. She was ragged. The bags she tried to conceal under the eyes, the sagging shoulders, her skin had paled considerably. _

"_I have to go." Had he heard her voice earlier he would been back sooner. It was devoid of life. Whatever had come to pass in his absence had caused this and she couldn't even lift her head high enough to look at him. Flitting out of his arms, she kept going._

"_Yuki?"_

"_Forget it Nishikado-san. Nothing happened."_

_He had come back prepared for the worse. Prepared for a world that told him how much he had wronged Yuki._

_He was not prepared for this._

_Following after her he made quick work of making sure to stop her fully this time._

"_Lets go somewhere and talk." She didn't disagree with him but she didn't make any indication that she agreed fully. _

_He found them a booth in the back of some café. The lunch crowd was gone and only a skeleton staff remained for the random late patrons like them._

_He order for them both and told the waiter to leave them once the drinks came._

"_Yuki?" She was across from him but had yet to say anything._

_She didn't comment to where she wanted to go. She didn't make any noise when she tripped on the curb. She just kept going._

"_I want to talk." He knew he had been away a long time. He hoped he made it clear in his calls that he would be back. He hoped she knew he would be back to handle this with her._

"_There's nothing to talk about Nishikado-san." Every word was devoid of any thing he expected. It was empty._

"_You said something before I left. We need to talk about it." He wasn't going to let her shoulder it alone. She had to know that somehow._

"_No we don't. There's nothing to talk about because there's nothing." Her hands shook as she reached for her drink but retreated back to her lap rather than continue its task._

"_What are you saying Yuki?" He was the father as far as he knew so there was plenty to talk about._

"_It's fine now Nishikado-san. Nothing happened because it's all nothing now. So we have nothing to talk about." She choked out the last bit before giving up and reaching for her drink._

_He knew he wanted to panic but she wasn't telling him what he was panicking for. His very being was shaken at what she was implying and he was stuck with a fear of what he was about to confirm. "Alright, if it's fine now, what happened for nothing to happen Yuki?"_

_She bowed her head further towards her drink. He could see the tears building up. He knew once she said it, it wouldn't be undone. It was already too late but once she said it, that was the worse he didn't have a way to plan for._

"_There was too much blood. There was nothing anyone could do. They said that it was common. So there's nothing now. So it's fine now."_

_If her admission to being pregnant had floored him, this was all but killing him. Reaching out he was met with her pulling her hands back to her lap._

"_What can I do?" There was no one he could call or pay to make this better. He knew in that moment there wasn't a damn thing he could do. He had left and wanted to believe the world would be fine till he got back. He had left trusting Yuki to be fine till he arrived. He had left forgetting that there were some things that will always be beyond his and Yuki's control and those forces found them when neither had been looking._

"_Nothing. There's nothing Nishikado-san. Didn't you hear? It was all nothing in the end. Nothing's going to happen so nothing did happen. It was all nothing. So it's fine." Each word she said only sounded worse than the last. One after the next it just kept cutting into him._

_He reached out again only for her to pull back._

"_Yuki?"_

"_You should go. You're suppose to be at work or something right now. I should go too." She had yet to look up at him. "I should get home. I need to study. There's a test. That mat-ters." Her voiced cracked just enough for her to give up. Her head only dipped further down. Peering over, he could see she was shaking under her layers. Making another attempt to reach over the table, she pulled back. "I'm going to go."_

_Not bothering to wait for his response she quickly slid out of the booth and dashed as best she could out the door without making a scene._

In hindsight, he should've gone after her. In hindsight, he was a clueless fool who didn't know what he was doing and she just needed someone. He didn't help matters by letting her take the path she wanted.

He laid in wait believing that she would bounce back. He let her be because she didn't ask for him. He wanted to believe she was the strong woman he always believed she would become. He didn't want to believe how much had been damaged between them. He didn't want to realize how much her strength was false bravado.

He wanted to believe that if she could continue on, he could to. If she didn't let it change them to the world then they would be fine. Their world hadn't been shattered beyond repair as long as status quo seemed to exist.

He never stopped to realize she was only there with him when others expected it.

It just stopped being them. They only went out with others. She smiled because someone who didn't know was watching her. She did all the right things so that no one would ask too much. She had been so good, he never realized how much she had pulled away from him till it was too late.

With him, she just walked away. Once everyone left, she left too. The smiles disappeared. The happy voice was gone. Only the void was left and it sucked the very essence out of him. He never knew this Yuki who hadn't a happy voice, she hadn't a random story or comment. Her words to him were short and pointed. The longer he tried to wait her out, the less she said. He had blinded himself with the hope that they would continue on.

He wanted it to be fine again. It wasn't her fault and it wasn't his fault how things unfolded. It just never struck him how much he deluded himself till the damage started to seep into like a poison.

The more he realized she had shut him out, the more he found blame in the blameless. The more she stopped acknowledging, the more he found anger in the world. He was Nishikado Soujirou and in that instance, his world was no longer his.

She took away his own will to be better the more she shut him away. She made it impossible for him to live the life he had with her.

He had every right to become what he was, she had made it impossible for him to be anything else.

The house did burn down and she wasn't the only one who lived there. Except she now longer remembered the house.


	7. Chapter 6

Nothing Still Hurts

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A/N: Sorry for the slowed updates, been busy with classes. Trying to finish my last 5 summer classes is a pain and so is working on two different time zones on different ends of the earth. I have the next four chapters typed up, just need to go back and edit all the holes and whatnot. I'm hoping to have the next chapter up later this week but knowing my actual schedule, it'll be closer to the end of next week or early the week after. As for this chapter, I know it seems fluffish but it's the only way I could set up some future transitions so please bear with me.

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Chapter 6

"Stop looking at me like that." Soujirou really didn't appreciate their staring. He was starting to feel like a freak show. Each day back was another day their eyes bore down on him. He knew the extent of his failures better than any of them. Who gave them the right to judge him?

Her grandmother was right, he didn't have it in him to truly blame anyone. He just felt like he could. He had blamed himself for not being back early enough. He blamed her for not letting him in on the whole matter. He blamed everything he could and had lashed out as much as he could without a tangible just cause.

He wasn't living with it then and he wasn't trying t live past it then either. He just let it brood like Yuki did. He hid it under layers of anything and everything, letting it get worse.

No, she was right to feel what she felt. Who was he to force her to talk to him? He had been just as bad as she was. No, he didn't have to force her to talk when even he wasn't ready but he shouldn't have let it all go so easily.

No, he had to live with that mistake and he would. The time for him to swoop in was gone long before he went to Kuni. The longer he had been in Kuni, the more he realized how futile his appearance really was.

His lone solace was that she didn't ever give him the impression that he was truly dead to her. Sure, she ran from him, left him behind and made him believe he was dead to her but her treatment wasn't much worse than what she gave to everyone else. No, he was going believe she would be back one day. Maybe when they both truly find themselves at a better place they could finally fix the mess they faced. It was like war, he had fought too many battles to really make sense of it anymore and his would be enemy had hurt him as much as he hurt her. They would forgive each other one day and he had no right to ask her to come back knowing that he wasn't ready to do her the same courtesy.

So he returned to Tokyo once it settled in that his presence in Kuni made little difference if any for either of them.

The few times he confronted Yuki had only brought him empty comfort and made things worse with Yuki. At best, if there was any cosmic spirit willing him to return then there must've been one that would help Yuki find her way too, even if it took a little longer than him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about man." Arching a doubtful glance at Akira, he returned to inspecting the inside of his eye lids. He had left for just over a month and the mountain of work only proved how much more the world kept going. Each day was another day of the tortures of the working world.

Soujirou's mother was more than adequately pleased he was back and had all but written off his departure as a youthful whim. She was willing to accept any excuse that would justify it all as an anomaly that he was growing out of. So for her, continuing on as if he never left was how he paid for his excursion.

She was never a hands-on mother but that didn't mean her maternal feelings didn't exist. She didn't dote on him or rake him over the coals, she just ignored that the last month had even happened. So tonight was another night where there was to be a party at the Nishikado estate and if he was truly back, he would be there and act normal. From a hinted dire threat by way of his father to be in attendance, it was only natural that the rest of the available F4 would stand guard while keeping him company as the party was being set up. Tonight would be like any other night. Akira and Rui's current company was for not only his benefit but his mother's. Rui had the peace of mind to send Tsukasa and Tsukushi out of the room before things got to this point. It seemed the walk around the estate might do the expectant mother good and keep the expectant father from giving him the final push to knock someone's lights out.

"I'm fine." He didn't bother to see if they had any reaction to his words. It was easier if he just didn't look.

They had judged him the moment he returned without Yuki. In their book, he had failed on a level that no man should willingly return defeated.

None of them had yet to walk a mile in his shoes so none of them had a right to truly judge him.

If anyone might ever have had a chance to know what it was like, it was Tsukasa and he was a man too happy at his impending firstborn to not suffer as much as Soujirou. No, he didn't truly wish Tsukasa tragedy. He just needed them to not judge him. So all in all, they needed to stop staring at him like some fault of the human species.

"Tsukushi mentioned that Yuki had already sent her gift for the baby shower." Akira was prodding and if Soujirou could truly prod back, he would've done so with an electric one.

"She'll come around when she wants to." Rui might judge but at least he was logical.

She had to. Her parents were in Tokyo. Her family was here. Whether it was months or years, Yuki would come back. At least Rui understood to leave well enough alone. No, it was understandable to see why she couldn't bear to be near Tsukushi just yet. It was no fault of the friend, it was just the way of the world.

"He's right Akira. She'll be back when she's ready. Hell, if you think you can do better, be my guess but whatever you do will be on your head. Not mine." Peeking a quick look through a closed lid he could see Akira leaning back in his seat diverting his glance elsewhere. No, they could all talk but when it came to doing, no one had a better idea than his.

"Damn fool." Soujirou gave a quiet chuckle before shaking his head at Akira's only comeback.

"I know." They were all fools at some point. Each of them had made some colossal mistakes to live with. Rui had to watch Shizuka love him and leave him. Then Tsukushi to Tsukasa. Akira was forever dodging the one who would finally end his ways. Married women had to return to their husbands, not him. Tsukasa will never be able to erase all the damning things he did to make his history with Tsukushi that much more scarred. Those first impressions were deeply ingrained and the memories will always be there. If there was any real hope, the fact that even Tsukasa and Tsukushi were able to get past it all then there Soujirou had a chance in hell. So what if the end result had the infamous pair bickering, it is their way. So some things won't change, it was some semblance of hope.

"If you stop to notice, he puts salt on my cooking too." It didn't matter to her. No matter what her grandmother said, Yuki was bound to make something that was fine as is. "That might be why he had his heart attack. Stubborn man won't change." The jovial tone didn't reach Yuki's ears, the words just filter through for her to nod accordingly.

Each meal was different, a new item that should've been fine as is. Some were simple, some weren't. Each time they sat at the table her grandfather would add something to the dish before him. A dash of something here or there, it was always something.

"He hated my eggs." Soujirou always added salt and pepper. He always took one bite before reaching for each.

"Men don't know good food till it's too late." With a reassuring hand, her grandmother turned off the stove. "It tasted fine to me." Scraping the eggs from the pan, she placed them on two small plates before sitting Yuki down at the table.

"Grandmother?"

"I'll try them with you." Smiling she took a few bites before look back up. "It tastes fine. Just like eggs are suppose to taste. Now can we talk about something that really matters?"

Yuki knew that her grandmother was trying to reach out to her. She just didn't know if she wanted to be reached anymore.

"Your mother says that a good friend of yours is expecting you back in Tokyo soon. You're going to be a godmother."

Godmother. There was nothing magical about the title, it didn't come with a wand to fix life's problems, there was no pumpkins turning into coaches. Yuki felt neither like a god or a mother. Nothing about her wanted the title but she couldn't reject Tsukushi's request but she just didn't want to be there. The joy in here wasn't enough to force her anywhere near Tokyo for the impending milestone.

"It's been long enough that you should just go back, even if for a day or two. Your grandfather will be fine with me. He's getting better and we're only wasting your time with each passing day. You should be with your peers."

It was all true.

She wandered the house playing house.

Her grandfather was defiantly bouncing back to his old self and at best, Yuki was just company. There was very little fighting left with her grandmother. Once the suggestion was made, her welcome was all but removed. It wasn't like her grandmother was clueless, she just discreetly gave her the shoves she really didn't want but technically needed.

The streets of Tokyo weren't like life in Kuni with her grandparents. No, people kept going in Tokyo. No one really stopped, they paused long enough to keep going. Wandering her way from one old haunt to the next, it was all moving past her.

The dango shop was closed early for the night.

The café on the corner had a new set of staff.

The equipment at the park had a fresh coat of paint.

Even the neighbors next to her parents' house had changed.

Her sister's place had changed too.

The spare key at her parents' house had moved as well.

She was to find her place again.

At least her room hadn't changed.

Everything there was as she left it.

It had been a long while since she came by. Shin knew who she was before he even bothered to approach. There was only one person he allowed in the garden at their whim. He had wanted to believe she had gone on with her life. Some women moved on quicker than others. Others looked at the life ahead of them but Yuki was different. She wasn't some young wife dealt a bad hand. She wasn't some mother hoping to give her young one a little sibling. No, Yuki was the link to the man his little brother became. She reminded him of Sara when he first met her. Fate had given him the dubious honor of being the bearer of bad news, he had to watch as she had walked out of his office shattered after each visit. She had been put in a position she didn't plan for and told that life had its own way of handling it for her no matter what she wanted.

No, he had a sore spot for her for many reasons.

Shin had left his family with the belief that those he left behind would continue to live in the gilded cage happy and free from the problems that others suffered. They would all continue to live as if disaster and tragedy were things that only happened to someone else. He wanted to believe that as long as they were able to be held on their pedestal, that he wouldn't feel the need to cave to that feeling to look back.

He had hoped that her absence meant she was better, finding her life again.

She was back and he knew. Those slumped shoulders hadn't changed much. She was still broken inside.

"I added a gnome." Sitting down next to her, Yuki didn't bother to look towards the gnome he had acquired. "I don't know if I should move it, it doesn't really look like it should be there."

It had been a long time and he could only guess what time did for her. The fact that very few images of Soujirou made it to the papers and the fact that Yuki wasn't in any of them didn't give him much peace of mind at the sight of her on the bench.

"I knew better." Yuki knew she was making a risky move when she crossed that line with Soujirou. It screamed of all the things she disregarded in herself but she let herself fall deeper into their habits.

"You're not the first person to make a regretful choice they shouldn't have."

"What next?" It was a valid question, there wasn't a simple answer. He had crossed a professional line a while back and had felt guilty in pushing her over the edge when she had enough to deal with. It was never her place to meet him as anything more than a professional and yet he couldn't keep his trap shut. She wasn't prepared to shoulder the burden of the black sheep in her time of grief and he had forced it on her like it would help. Now she was asking for direction and he just happened to be the audience. He was the last person to know better.

"Medically speaking, nothing." She was a healthy young woman who had a blemish free history except for one incident.

"I feel old." It wasn't stress that had done her in, no, being jammed in life's darker side had shredded her innocent grasp on youth.

"You have your whole life ahead of you to feel old. Let that feeling pass." He felt weighed down once upon a time when he fled his family, realizing that life was harsh and tough as one without any outside support. "If you keep holding onto what you're feeling, you won't know anything else."

She still hadn't let go of what had happened. At best, she was functional but one tragedy was still digging its claws into her and she was letting it bleed her dry.

"And if it's too late to let it pass? What if I really don't know anything else?" Shaking his head he pulled her into a slight hug.

"Then know that at least roughly one in four pregnant women have gone through what you have." She was trying to move on now and reason might be something she would listen to. "You could blame any number of outside events for what happened but in the end, there are a world of possibilities of what really happened. The human body is not perfect. Healthy bodies can become diseased ones for any number of reasons and causes and what happened to you is not something you created."

"If.." He knew she was still clinging to that moment months ago. That time when she didn't want to hear it. One shocking bit of news was enough for her, one more had done her in.

"Healthy women in the prime of their lives who conceive under all the ideal circumstances they could manage, _while_ taking all the precautions they could _with_ all the preventative care are not completely safe from the very thing they try to avoid. Whatever you think you did or thought to cause it, wasn't. Let's say medically speaking, it wasn't your fault." He gave her shoulder another reassuring squeeze to see if she heard him. She did. "Letting it take its toll on you, that can be your fault if you let it. There's no point in creating blame out of nowhere to fill a void you want to create. _That_ isn't healthy."

"I guess." It wasn't an empty admission. No, she was realizing how much she had let it hurt her.

Getting up, he held his hand out for her. "Come on."

"Nishikado-san?" He wasn't going to make her leave, he was going to give her a reason to go.

"It's late and I haven't had dinner. Not to mention I don't feel like cooking. So you can join me and maybe you can tell me what my idiot brother's been like since I last saw him." Flashing Yuki his best smile, it was clear how much the brothers were alike in looks.

"I don't know."

"I don't bite and worse case, you're saving me from eating alone." It was over the top, he gave her a slight wink and already she was ducking her head like a shy schoolgirl.

Yuki had came as far as to realize she need to stop the way she was going, no, she had falsely soldiered on the remnants of her life till the fumes had dried out. Nishikado Shin had watched on the sidelines long enough trying to keep one hand off the matter wishing he did more and he wasn't going to keep himself out of it much longer.

He wasn't ignorant to the family he left. Just because he had left them over a decade ago, that didn't mean he didn't bother to read about his family when they popped up in the news or just the plain gossip rags. He kept himself _informed_ under the pretense of fear that they would drag him back against his will.

They never did.

Loathe as they might to accept what he did, the Nishikado family as a unit most likely weighed all the possible avenues to take and letting him go as they did was the least damaging way. He had been in a very combative place back then and anything they would've done otherwise would've only made the matter too public for his family's liking.

So nostalgia let him mull over anything Nishikado for the sake of believing he still knew his family. In the beginning days, his family made masked public attempt to ask him back from his _youthful impulse_ that they claimed he had to go find himself. With time they avoided direct scandal by having Soujirou step into his big brother's place. Slowly, Soujirou was forced out of second child status to take on the responsibilities that came with being their parents heir. It had all seemed successful the beginning years but spiraled just enough that the public noticed Soujirou gallivanting about with great abandon. No, it was clear his parents weren't going to let Soujirou leave and they would look past his indiscretions as long as he stayed in his forced place.

While the gossip rags hungered for any juicy bit his brother provided, it was their family name and money that kept the worse from ever reaching the public. Whatever Shin saw from a distance was only a taste of what it was really like and he knew it. Whatever Soujirou had done to himself, it had gotten to the point even Shin regretted his choice to leave and was all but ready to go back just to take away the reason Soujirou was destroying himself.

Racked with growing guilt, Shin had been ready to abandon his residency in the US just for Soujirou. He had his notice to the hospital ready and had been ready to leave his new life behind when the mounting scandal of his brother started to fade. Each day he was preparing to go back, he poured over any new news of Soujirou and each new bit seemed less self-destructive than the last.

Reports of Soujirou's nightly excursions slowly died down and eventually they only referred to his past rather than his present. It had given Shin enough pause to stay away. He had believed that out of it all, his parents broke the delinquency out of Soujirou. Shin had regretting knowing that Soujirou had to pay for his crime but then when he did return to Tokyo, he finally saw what it was the might've really gave Soujirou time to pause.

Yuki.

Pure coincidence had led him down the street near the dango shop. Having been looking for a place for his clinic, he had passed the dango shop once thinking it was weird that someone would be rude enough to park their bike in such a haphazard way outside the shop but he kept on his way. It wasn't till after the left the property that would later become the clinic that he saw his bother exit the shop with Yuki. Handing her a helmet, they were speeding off down the street on his bike. Had he been a second later, he wouldn't have seen either faces and written it off as any other two people. In context, he saw it all. In his mind, Yuki was the reason. He had seen her in the background of various pictures and reports on Soujirou and his friends. Even on a few occasions, she had actually been linked with his brother for a public event. He hadn't given much heed to it all from a distance but seeing it in person he knew.

The bike Soujirou rode was once Shin's. It was part of Shin's initial testing of the waters. He had bought the thing to retaliate against his parents for not listening when he even broached the idea of wanting to do something with his life that wasn't their idea. So on the way home from school one day with Soujirou, they stopped at a dealership and he told Soujirou to point to whichever he thought was good. Poor Soujirou had thought that his brother was including him for the fun of it all when in reality Shin just wanted to rebel and any bike was as good as the rest.

Handing his brother back to the chauffer, he took the bike home.

That day on the street, his brother had speed away with Yuki with a smile on both their faces. It reminded Shin of the Soujirou before he left.

Purely carefree and happy.

So when Yuki had wandered into his clinic, he had told the receptionist to make time for her. Push anyone back or out if need be.

There were some things a brother shouldn't know about his brother's girlfriend. The exact day she asked for birth control would be one of the few private things he should've sent her to an OB/GYN for but he was already in the know and it was better to get her what she needed that day then push her off to someone else. At best, he would keep the whole matter as discreet as he could.

So for a few years, she came in at the expected intervals and he looked the other way at all the implications, keeping himself exteriorly oblivious but the bits she shared with him in passing didn't help sooth his worries. At first he was happy that his brother was settling but then the random images of Soujirou with other women only made him question who Yuki was. She didn't outright tell him she was seeing Soujirou and at best called him a good friend, even mentioning that he took her out a few times but never saying much more.

It wasn't ideal but Shin wasn't in a position to really lecture her on the matter without causing more problems. Then the day came when she came in and in his mind he knew it wasn't right. Her regular check up was months away and she only came by at the expected intervals. No, the smile she gave when asking if she could be seen that day was laced with need. So he did make time for her that day.

She was there for a very serious reason and it didn't dawn on him how serious till he finally saw her in the exam room.

Still in her work uniform, her mind was miles away giving him the automatic answers till he got to asking what she was there for. From there, it just ended his hope that Soujirou was living a burden free life.

She asked how likely it was a home pregnancy test was faulty and already he knew that she was there because it was all too late. That lecture he should've given her, the need to reveal who he really was, all of it was too late. Once he did the test, she was only getting final confirmation on what she knew and he was stuck giving her the news.

She didn't react with abject horror, she just wandered out stating she was going to be sick and proceeded to throw up. She didn't ask him for information for later, she just left with the weight of it all dragging her down. If anything he had let it cross his mind a few times wondering if he had cross the line with her earlier if it would've made a difference.

He knew better than to think that way but it didn't stop the thoughts from popping up. He had told himself a few times that he had cross enough lines just by telling her who he was. Telling her sooner wouldn't have changed anything. No, just like he told her, the statistics leaned both ways so walking the guilty path was pointless.

So when the fateful day she came in with a worse outlook on the situation he had to be her doctor and when the deed had been done, he cracked.

He lectured her on what had happened. He gave all the medical details he could trying to use it as his way from finally cracking.

For the briefest of instances he saw the worse for Yuki, the life of a single parent. Then for the briefest of instances he saw the best. He saw in his mind's eye his brother happily married with a family and him an uncle to the next generation. That happy image would've been made had the baby not been loss. No matter how much he tried to logically and rationally tell Yuki that it was natural, none of it felt natural to him. No matter what any book he read or lecture he remembered, nothing about it was natural.

So he cracked.

In his personal weakness, he had a permanent personal front row seat to her breakdown. In his delusion of hope, he thought she was a smart enough girl that she would be fine.

He reasoned that she had been given an easy out to her dilemma. Between nature and a skewed view of medicine, she was saved from being a social outcast. Her life was saved from hardships and grief of another living being. For that lone instance he wanted to believe all the things she wouldn't have to face would be enough to drive her off the edge.

He forgot that she was human for a second. He forgot that whether by chance or not, she had still suffered. After all his reasoning, she just nodded at him silently before thanking him and leaving. Somewhere on her way out, she asked he stayed professional enough to not tell Soujirou but she fled without looking back at him.

She fled in that instance believing he was some messenger of death and destruction. He gave her confirmation of the end of her life as she knew it on at least two occasions and he tried to spin them in good ways but regardless he didn't stop to realize that what he saw wasn't what she saw.

At the very least, she was giving him a chance to make up for his mistakes in the whole mess.


	8. Chapter 7

Nothing Still Hurts

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A/N: Well technically this chapter was written ages ago. Of course technically, I underestimated how much I overbooked my life that I couldn't go back and actually edit this chapter to be uploaded. Sorry for the delay and my hope is the semester will end late next week and my brain will be less annoyed with me. I would say enjoy but given the time that has passed, I can't remember where I was originally ending this story. The intent and meanings are there but the actual storyline has holes now. Oh wells, I'll have Christmas break to actually think about it.

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Chapter 7

Anger was a beast that Soujirou had been use to battling and losing to. He had all but let the damned beast drive his very being on more than one occasion. There wasn't a corner he could turn most days that the creature didn't give him a reason to just give up. It had made Soujirou into a very combative man and overall it was the kind of man his father wanted to deal with difficult matters.

The only problem was that Soujirou use to have someone who reined him in. She gave him pause to cage the beast a few times. It wasn't that Soujirou was a menace when angered or that no one could tolerate him but his nature was quite difficult when victim to anger. While Akira had grown into his own to reason with the beast, Yuki was the one that told the demons to take a hike. She was a happy force that didn't take prisoners. Even when she dragged him to and fro of various silly mundane things that he wouldn't do for anyone else, he couldn't seem to be angry even when any other person he would've exploded at least once or twice at.

The very reason he hated her eggs had less to do with the fact that they seemed bland and more to do with the fact that he couldn't react the way he would have had it been made by any other person. He could never tell her to not make them and he could never stomach to tell her that her cooking was just adequate. She tried her best with him and he couldn't just cut into her like a cad. He hated what he couldn't do. She had been the exception. She was about the only person he ever woke up to without an exit strategy and he knew that stupid ridiculous things like her eggs were another few moments where he hadn't a reason to leave yet.

For all the things he could and had hated in his life, he hadn't let them overcome him as well as anger. He knew his fault didn't entitle him to any extra consideration and partly it was quite childish of him to be easily angered but he never bothered to rid himself of the habit. It was a feeling he was use to, he saw little reason to cut it from his very being. Liken to a safety blanket, he just couldn't see himself as someone without it. No one was immune to his anger, there were no exceptions to the beast. Some bore the brunt of his anger better and some were less susceptible. His friends waved his bouts of anger off when they could or humored him when all else failed, his family chose to ignore it was even a problem and Yuki just plain didn't tolerate it in her presence. If he brought his anger at work in her presence, she didn't care for. If he had a problem with someone in particular, she gave him his choices and forced his anger out of him or away from her.

So the fact that she hadn't tried to deal with his anger over their problem was something he couldn't fathom. He had let it be at first, letting his beast lead him since he didn't know how to deal with it in respect to her. He silently brooded with time. His anger flared to the point of violently lashing out. He didn't know how to be angry at her without her 'fixing' him. It had run rampant till he found a way back to not being angry at her, unfortunately she wasn't there to enjoy his growth. So for her, he had learned to tell the beast where it could go. He just hadn't realized that his newfound self improvement would be sorely tested.

He had felt the beast digging its claws into him. Red wasn't close to the color he saw. For a brief instance it flared to the point of violently doing bodily harm to anyone in sight. The only saving grace to his primary target was the fact that the bus carrying Yuki and the guy with her was speeding off faster than his legs could carry him.

A reasonable person would be more hurt than angry but Soujirou hadn't found hurt to be a beast that did him any good. No, anger worked well, it fueled him to make some of the very life defining choices he made. Anger at Sara kept him from finding her that fateful morning. Anger at himself brought him to see how sincere Yuki was to being important to him. So anger forced him to her parents' house, waiting on her. He knew better than to count the minutes but he wasn't a patient man so for every minute that passed waiting on her he let his anger get the better of him. He disregarded that public transportation was only as quick as the route it took. He disregarded that there was a chance she wouldn't be headed home. He would wait as long as he could whether Yuki arrived or not and his anger would lead him again. A hopeful man in him wanted to believe that no matter what that his Yuki was back but the angry man was in charge and he was restless without a target.

The street was quiet and he could hear the distant cars pass blocks away. It was far too late for even Yuki to be out. No, he could have found a multitude of reasons why he was rightly angry but there was no denying the root of his anger.

Even without its direct presence he was as angry as he was when he first saw them. No, it didn't matter that she was back. It didn't matter that she hadn't bothered to let anyone know she was even coming back to Tokyo. It was the very fact that some dumbass had gotten her to smile. The asshole was able to get Yuki to actually look like she was real, unguarded. It was the Yuki he remembered from too long ago. He could careless who the jerk was, he was angry that she had the gall to be happy without him.

She had all but told him in that one instance that he not only cease to matter but his own happiness meant nothing to her.

Humans were a selfish species and a rare few really gave two bits about their fellow man enough to want them truly happy. Soujirou was not among the rare. He was petty, childish, and selfish by nature and he more than extended it to those in his life.

No matter how much he was trying to do the right thing, the petty part of him was far from please to see Yuki content without a regard to him.

"Nishikado-san."

He could feel the anger seething inside of him. He was a stranger to her. "Matsuoka-san."

He was still capable of drawing a reaction out of her. No, he had always greeted her on a personal tone and the creature in front of him didn't deserve it. No, she wasn't worthy of any regard from him that could've welled from his weak spot for her. No, this was not Yuki and she needed to know that she had killed that part of him that would allow him to let her hurt him.

"I deserve that." Rightly so. She should know her place. She should …

"Wait, what?" No, this wasn't what he had expected. He wanted some sense of vengeance.

"It's late and there's no doubt we're both very tired." It didn't take much for him to veer back on track to the reasons why he was angry with her. The simple adjustment of the damned coat she wore only reminded that she had a partner in her crime against him. No, the coat she had on did not belong to her and was from one guy who had no right to be near her.

"Yes it is late." The reminder that she was out pass an acceptable time didn't register with her.

Stretching a bit she shot him a slight smile before continuing past him to her front door. Pausing a bit before him, she planted a package in front of him. "Your favorite."

For an instance he had forgotten the very fact he was even angry. For a second he forgot that all the pain and misery they forced one another through hadn't happened. For a second he could've sworn the nightmare of all the months past was just a figment of his twisted mind.

"What?"

She didn't bother to respond with more than a wave over her should as she entered her house.

Her parents were home and any grand demand on his part would've woken her parents. Waiting a bit he saw the light to her room come on for a few seconds as she dart about the room before turning the lights off. No doubt she went to bed.

Had she forgotten the misery they face? Was she out to take his last attempt at normality again?

How he wanted to hate her. There were parts of him that wish his anger wasn't weak to her. Looking into the package, it was clear for a second he was always weak to her. His weakness allowed him to look, his weakness allowed him to realize she had left him with a slice of that damn cake she always got.

She was right, it was his favorite. He stopped off that the patisserie a few times to get her a slice of hummingbird cake when he was close and her blessed heart would share and he was more than happy to take the bites she offered. He had made the fatal mistake of judging the confection by appearances with the fake frosted carrot and questioned her taste till the day she made him eat his words. From then he had lost. He admitted minor defeat to her face and said it was tolerable. So he insisted in the name of his pride and humility he would partake at later occurrences and she had been kind enough to always gave him good share.

On that night, she gave him the cake.

"Akira?" He had guessed correctly and had let the week pass him before he did something about it. Now he was stuck, not sure why he was breaking his silent promise to not get involved. The whole matter reeked of failure on the part of the F4 and group pride kept him more invested than just as a friend.

"He knows you're back." Yuki found enough humor in his comment to let out a small laugh. It was a foreign sound to him. He hadn't noticed before but he hadn't heard a real laugh out of her for quite some time. He had mentally altered all her actions to fit his image not realizing what he had done and now as he dug deeper into the whole matter, he couldn't quite place what it was he missed.

"I know." Of course she did. She hadn't been surprised to see Akira at her door waiting on her. She didn't try to excuse herself from his presence.

Wherever she was headed, she didn't use it as a way to leave him on the street. She only acquiesced to his request for her time. Having left all but them in his car, he didn't quite know where to take them.

They made an awkward sight just sitting there on the street outside her parent's house.

"Is everything ok?" He knew the answer but still, maybe he was wrong. Maybe all the warnings were just empty and it was just a big production over nothing.

She made a face, reflecting for a second she collected herself before responding. "I hope so."

He gave a chuckle to her guarded response. "I've been told I have no right to ask." She nodded slightly to his statement. "But even I know that it's a cold day in hell when Soujirou doesn't go to see you knowing that you're free and around." She shot him a dirty glance. "And he has time to do so."

Her scowl softened at his statement. "I know."

"So if you know and Soujirou knows, what exactly is it that keeps you two from actually talking to each other. Don't get me wrong, he's been a model citizen for the past few months and while I'm all for him being a mature adult, he's getting to be a big downer. It use to be I could persuade you to kick him out on the town every now and then but seeing as how you two aren't really talking, I'm gonna need you to either fix that or find me someone who can drag some fun back in the boy."

The very notion that Nishikado Soujirou would ever be called a model citizen was enough to bring some humor to Yuki's lips. She had once a lifetime ago wondered if there would ever be a day when he would be anything close to one and today one of his best friends could only describe him as one.

"I guess we all change."

"He went to Kuni for you." She knew that for quite some time. It was part of the reason why she had returned to Tokyo. She didn't come back for her family or friends. She had originally come back for him. Unfortunately the moment she set foot within city limits, she had realized too much time had passed. What real reason did she have to drag the past back out into the open? They failed in the end and going backwards just wouldn't do.

"Just give me some time Akira." Not bothering to hear the rest of his possible speech, she exited the car and made her way down the street.

No, it wasn't the slight changes to just her own haunts that had gave her pause. It had gone as far has the Nishikado estate. When she had first arrived, her first instinct was to go see Soujirou. Like her last visit there, she had loitered at the entrance with a pit of fear. The difference this time was that she hadn't been noticed further than a gardener nodding to her. No one bothered to acknowledge that she was anything more than some girl sightseeing at the gates. Only welcomed visitors were allowed and she was no longer considered welcomed enough to be considered a visitor. Whoever had been watching at the cameras didn't see her as someone to jump at attention for. There hadn't been any veiled signs that she was part of some inner circle. She was no longer considered enough to be welcomed.

True to Akira's claim, Soujirou was a model citizen. It was to the point that even Shin commented to her a few times that his brother seemed too stiff in the press. She had taken to readjusting her return to Tokyo in an odd way. While she found a foothold back in the city she grew up in, she hadn't actually returned to the life she left behind. Yuki knew she hadn't been completely ready to return to her peers. After that night at dinner with Shin, she only realized all too quickly all her stories were far older than she thought. Her memories of her friends and family only went as far as the year before. For all that had happened, she had practically voided the past year and lumped away with vague notions to rely on.

She couldn't remember how she really did leave Tokyo. At best she could say that she picked everything up one day and left. She didn't leave herself something to really return to. She was at a loss for what she was really doing. There was no underlining reason to be back other than to be so. She had no one to she held responsibilities to, school had ended for her months back without much fanfare since she had let her departure overshadow it. Work ended as well since Okami-san had expected her to move up the working ladder. Her life lacked direction.

Maybe it was out of pity or the fact that he was Soujirou's brother but she found temporary relief in Shin's offer of a job. His clinic was doing well enough and he had long needed an extra pair of hands around the place. So she found herself waking up most days going to the clinic bright and early and staying till the last patient. Even on the rare days that Shin told her to go home early she was still there toiling away just to be useful. She hadn't been fond of such a structured life but it was enough for her to not run back to Kuni.

The morning Akira found her was one of the rare days she didn't have to come in to work till later in the day but had ventured out early since it was had become her habit. On that day, she was taken aback enough to wander her way to work slowly. Reflecting just enough, she realized how far both Soujirou and her had left things in the air. They had never put their futures down in stone in regard to one another and while they had a quiet agreement to table the idea of the future the current situation was more foreign than anything.

It was safe to say on that day, she had drifted through work with half a thought and a void to all she passed.

She was letting life go on without her again. She hadn't really returned to Tokyo yet.


End file.
